Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of The 2008 Financial Crisis On Crime And Cybercrime In The United States, Rashed Adel Alsuwaidi

Theses

This thesis will examine how the traditional crime and cy- were affected by the 2008 financial crisis. United States are also experiencing a rise in crime between 2005 and 2012. Based on the FBI data at the national level. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), Uniform Crime Reports and important economic indicators. The study, which involves tors, including unemployment, GDP, rates of foreclosures, and mortgage rates, is a combination. correlationbased interpretation supported by exploratory descriptive trend analysis. model-fit checks. The results indicate that contrary to the conventional expectations, violent and property crime also maintained their long-term reduction during the period …

Play Of Curiosity: A Table-Top Game That Cultivates A Creative Attitude By Encouraging Curiosity In Young Adults, Kajal Shah

Theses

In a time that increasingly demands instant creativity, adaptability, and innovative thinking on a constant basis, nurturing a curious attitude among young adults must become a critical focus. Creativity and curiosity can be encouraged throughout various stages of life, and for myriads of personality types, the focus demographic of this paper is young adults, ages 18 to 26 years old. Young adulthood is when one starts to recognize post-formal thoughts. This stage of cognitive development helps to approach concepts beyond binary thinking, developing the unique abilities of ambiguous thinking and relativism. The enigmatic, ever-changing, and easygoing mind will often try …

Strainx : A Technical Exploration Of Cinema4d'S Native Particle System In An Experimental Title Sequence, Farah Ahmad

Theses

This paper presents a practice-based investigation into the capabilities of Cinema 4D’s native particle system through the creation of an experimental title sequence titled StrainX. The project was conceived as a technical and aesthetic exploration, prioritizing abstraction, form, and motion over narrative content. Through iterative testing and simulation, the study examines how Cinema 4D’s built-in particle, geometry, and material tools can generate visually complex results without relying on third-party plugins, such as X-Particles. All assets, simulations, and textures were developed natively within Cinema 4D, allowing for a unified and efficient workflow. The methodology emphasizes procedural experimentation, simulation caching using Alembic …

Optimizing Human Resource Decisions: Predicting Promotions Using Data Analytics, Mohammad Khalid A Mohammad Abdulrahim

Theses

Proper and objective selection of high potential employees to promote them is a major dilemma in the Human Resources (HR) department, more so in sensitive and hierarchal environments in the public sector where subjectivity is likely to take place. This paper is based on this ubiquitous issue, and it seeks to develop, experiment, and examine a clear and equitable machine learning model that can forecast the possibility of an employee to get a promotion according to organized past HR records. The technique was solid preprocessing, alleviation of extreme class imbalances on the basis of the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE), …

Work And Play In Tandem: A Brief Study Of Familiar Silhouettes In The Contemporary Workplace, Tanisa Bose Samaddar

Theses

This thesis addresses the limitations posed by conventional office furniture, and its impact on human psychological and physiological well-being. Drawing upon literature that delves into the topics of neuroscience of play, environmental psychology, and emotional sustainability, the thesis seeks to solve these issues through design modifications. It aims to understand how brief, movement-focused breaks can help rejuvenate executive functioning, uplift mood, and encourage bursts of social interaction. A five-stage prototyping process, thumbnail sketches, clay models, 3D modeling, full-scale drawings, and iterative Fusion360 refinements, later Tandem was born. By requiring at least two users to operate its see-saw mode, Tandem counteracts …

A Ux Approach To Improving Patient Experience In Healthcare, Lingxin Sun

Theses

Doc Ease is a UX research and design project that addresses the emotional and functional difficulties patients experience before visiting a doctor. Through user interviews, competitive analysis, and design iteration, this project identified key user pain points such as unclear appointment processes, lack of trust, and pre-visit anxiety. The resulting mobile app offers clear booking tools, visual doctor information, medication reminders, and an emotional wellness module to help patients prepare with confidence. The project contributes to the field of healthcare UX by integrating functional usability with emotional care, proposing a design framework that centers patient experience in both logic and …

Hyaluronic Acid Loaded With Aloe Vera-Derived Extracellular Vesicles: A New Bioactive Approach For Fibrotic Scarring, Maria Camila Ceballos Santa

Theses

Disruptions in wound healing can result in pathological outcomes ranging from chronic nonhealing wounds to excessive fibrotic scarring. Hypertrophic scars and keloids are hallmarks of this dysregulation, characterized by abnormal collagen deposition, persistent myofibroblast activation, and disorganized extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. Chronic inflammation and oxidative stress play central roles by increasing reactive oxygen species (ROS), which damage essential macromolecules and sustain pro-inflammatory signaling, while promoting the transdifferentiation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts and the excessive production of ECM proteins, such as collagen and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA). This fibrotic cascade leads to tissue stiffness, contractility, and disfigurement, affecting the well-being of …

Observed Parenting, Parent-Child Aggression, And Intimate Partner Violence As Predictive Of Family Dysfunction, Paige Munshell

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Family systems theories contextualize violence as occurring across multiple levels of the family, yet much of the existing literature focuses on a single family member’s outcome (i.e., the child) and neglects to include data collected from fathers. This study examined the associations between indicators of functioning at the dyadic-level in the family system—observed parenting, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) perpetration, and Parent-Child Aggression (PCA) risk—and later overall family dysfunction. Participants were 180 mothers and 144 of their male partners evaluated when their child was 18 months old and re-evaluated at 4 years old. Measures of observed parenting, IPV perpetration, and PCA …

Leading With All The Feels: Exploring The Perceptions Of Middle School Administrators' Implementation Of School-Wide Social-Emotional Learning Programming, Sabrina Smith Richardson

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Middle school administrators have multiple responsibilities that range from ensuring the safety and security of staff and students to overseeing the curriculum and instructional foci of their buildings. At the same time, middle school students are experiencing the early stages of adolescence. Because it is a complex time for students to navigate, it creates anxiety, a decline in academic achievement and motivation, and peer and academic pressures (London, 2022; Schlund, 2021). Middle school students have social-emotional needs that are not typically met in secondary schools, which means programming is not typically a part of the instructional day. This study examined …

Exploring Bonding Through Outdoor Recreation In Foster Care Utilizing Attachment Theory, Casandra L. Barnes

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

As of 2024, there are over 328,000 children in foster care in the United States (AFCARS, 2024), many of whom experience disrupted attachments and trauma that hinder their ability to form healthy relationships. Drawing from attachment theory, this study explores how outdoor recreational activities can facilitate bonding between foster parents and their foster children. Using a mixed method approach this explorative research project consisted of two phases: a pilot study at the Virginia zoo involving foster families participating in a cooperative outdoor activity and completing post event surveys, and semi-structured interviews with foster parents to examine lived experiences of bonding …

The Presentation Of Self In Everyday Digital Life: A Study Of Self- Disclosure And Work Environments, Mackenzie Michelle Skiff

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The digital age impacts individuals’ lives in many ways. One impact is how and where work is completed across many careers. The work-from-home strategy enables individuals to complete work that is not within a shared space, such as an office. With the absence of this shared space, communication practices within workplaces could be changing. Specifically, self-disclosure while working from home may differ from self-disclosure within the office or hybrid (both in office and remote) work environments. This thesis investigates whether there are differences in self-disclosure practices across three different types of contemporary work environments and offers a digital update to …

The Influence Of Individual And Collective Social Capital On Teachers’ Decisions To Move Districts, Melinda Dawn Hodgkiss

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Understanding what contributes to teachers’ decisions to stay or leave in a school district is complex. There is a need to further investigate factors that influence teacher retention and attrition so that policy makers and school leaders can be informed about practices that may replenish and sustain the educator workforce. In an effort to understand the essence of the lived experience of teachers who previously made a decision to move districts, this study used phenomenological methods for the purpose of discovering the role that access to individual and collective social capital played in teachers’ decision making. Semi-structured interviews were conducted …

Reflections In The Mirror: An Examination Of Racially Congruent Mentoring Of Black Teacher Candidates In A Teacher Education Program, Mary Louise Gregory

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The high demand for Black educators in K-12 schools across the United States has caused several teacher training programs to rethink how they prepare Black teacher candidates for the teaching workforce (Andrews et al., 2019; Blazar, 2024; Milner & Howard, 2004). Improving teacher candidate training, especially for Black teacher candidates can boost K-12 Black teacher representation. Literature on Black teacher candidate’s experiences while being mentored identifies several challenges that include issues with implicit bias, microaggressions, stereotyping and other occurrences of racial discrimination (Daly et al., 2024; Hampton et al., 2008; Kardos & Johnson-Moore, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2020). The process …

Unraveling The Links Between Substance Use And Academic Motivation In Higher Education, Melissa Lynn Goins

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) posits that the quality of students’ motivation regulation (i.e., autonomous versus controlled) shapes both learning and health behavior, yet few studies have examined the relations among motivation regulation, alcohol and cannabis use, and achievement. In this study, I surveyed 459 undergraduates at a mid-sized public university in the southeastern United States. Participants completed the Academic Motivation Scale-College version 28 to assess autonomous and controlled motivation regulation, a typical-week alcohol grid, a seven-day cannabis grid, and self-reported grade point average (GPA). Results indicated that autonomous academic motivation was uniquely related to GPA; however, neither motivation variable related to …

Violence As An Ecology: Women Making Safety In Khayelitsha, Melissa J. Miller-Felton

Graduate Program in International Studies Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation asks how women in Khayelitsha make safety in a place where danger has become ordinary and where the afterlives of colonialism and apartheid still determine who waits, who walks, and who arrives home. What began as a study of risk and protection grew into an inquiry about time, dignity, and responsibility. I call the framework that emerged an ecology of violence—a way of seeing how harm gathers across generations and infrastructures, and how care, exhaustion, and survival intertwine within it.

In this ecology, violence is not a single act but a confluence of registers—slow, structural, colonial, and …

Lawyers' Client-Inclusive Negotiations: The "New Mediation"?, Nancy A. Welsh, Donna Shestowsky

Faculty Scholarship

When proponents initially urged the courts to institutionalize mediation for the resolution of general civil cases, they argued that the procedure would be superior to trial—and also to lawyers’ settlement negotiations—in terms of parties’ exercise of self-determination, satisfaction with outcomes, and opportunity for voice. These claims, however, rested on certain assumptions, particularly regarding the implementation of mediation and lawyers’ settlement negotiations. In mediation, the parties were to take center stage, with the mediator assisting them by facilitating their communication and negotiation so that they could reach a customized resolution. Lawyers’ settlement negotiations in general civil litigation, meanwhile, were assumed to …

"That's How It Is On This Bitch Of An Earth": The Possibilities, Pitfalls, And Potential Of References To Waiting For Godot In Judicial Opinions, Ben Phillips

Penn State Law Review (2003 - Present)

No abstract provided.

The Constitution And Online Exams: A New Fourth Amendment Take On Ogletree V. Cleveland State University, Arthur Benne

Penn State Law Review (2003 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Solving The Puppy Mill Problem: Using "Carrots And Sticks" To Encourage Compliance With The Animal Welfare Act, Ashlyn Browning

Penn State Law Review (2003 - Present)

No abstract provided.

A Decade Of Knowledge Without Borders: Open Access And Global Reach Of School Social Work Research, Leticia Villarreal Sosa

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the International Journal for School Social Work (IJSSW), this article provides a reflection on a decade the last decade of breaking barriers and building bridges across practitioners, researchers, communities, and continents and looks forward to our responsibility for the future. This article discusses the benefits and challenges related to Open Access publishing, and addresses how Open Access is a public good—ensuring that practitioners, researchers, students, and policymakers can engage the best evidence regardless of geography, resources, or institutional affiliation. The impact of IJSSW is reviewed, including a summary of accomplishments, most downloaded …

The Impact Of Career Development Education In Rural Communities: A Program Evaluation, Hayden S. Austin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the impact of a regional career development education program using a post-test-only, exploratory descriptive design with middle and high school students from rural and urban school districts in West Central Texas. Students who participated in the Career and Education Outreach (CEO) program received four classroom sessions focused on labor market information, high-demand industries, employability skills, and career pathways. The purpose of this research was to explore whether students’ perceptions of the value of career development education differed based on geographic region, economic level, educational level, ethnic composition of the district, and the students’ own demographic characteristics. A …

Consequences Of Secondary Traumatic Stress On Individuals Without Formal Psychological Training Working With Trauma-Exposed Children, Juan F. Valdez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Literature has suggested that secondary traumatic stress could cause various adverse effects for individuals working with trauma-exposed populations. However, direct care workers performing in shelters designed to serve unaccompanied immigrant children are faced with the task of caring for these minors who may have been exposed to trauma in their home countries, while traveling to the United States, or after arriving in the country. This qualitative case study was conducted to understand and describe the experiences of 15 current employees and five ex-employees who have worked with unaccompanied children for at least a year. These individuals participated in in-depth personal …

A Qualitative Descriptive Study On The Importance Of Principal Leadership On Title I Middle School Teachers’ Decisions To Remain Teaching In The School, Lebrandan Keshaun Jenkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative descriptive study examined the perspectives of novice middle school teachers with 0–5 years of experience who taught core academic subjects in Texas Title I school districts. I sought to understand how principal leadership or the building administrator to whom these teachers report influenced their decisions to remain in the teaching profession. Grounded in Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory, I described how leadership functions as both a motivator and a hygiene factor in shaping job satisfaction and retention. Data collection involved semistructured interviews and an optional Likert scale survey to capture both narrative insights and measurable perceptions. The findings illuminated the …

Leading With Strength: The Relationship Between Character Strength Awareness And Teacher Self-Efficacy, Ashton Lynn Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditional educational leadership practices have historically emphasized weakness-based approaches to leadership regarding teacher interventions. Emerging research grounded in positive psychology suggests that strength-based interventions may offer a more effective pathway for supporting educators. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the influence of character strength awareness on teacher self-efficacy. Guided by a strength-based leadership framework, the researcher investigated whether intentional character strength interventions could positively impact teachers’ perceptions of their instructional effectiveness. The study employed an action research design with 14 K–12 teachers from a rural public school district in Texas. Participants completed the Values in Action …

Vol 70 #6, Rebecca Chavez

MPLA Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On National Hockey League Fan Attendance, Ramon E. Rivera

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic struck swiftly around the world, causing several societal functions and normalcies to adapt or shut down completely. This culminating project explores the effects of COVID-19 on arena fan attendance of the National Hockey League (NHL). This project was guided by the following three research questions: Q1 – How did the NHL arena closures affect fan attendance during the COVID-19 pandemic? Q2 – What factors influenced NHL fan arena attendance before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? Q3 – What factors impacted the NHL arena fan attendance after the conclusion of the COVID-19 pandemic? An empirical model developed …

Rethinking The Performance Evaluation, Jason C. Crowley

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This paper delves into the complexities of performance evaluations within community college settings, aiming to inform a more effective approach specific to the unique characteristics of staff attracted to this work. Grounded in the understanding of validity in psychometric measurement and management theories, it seeks to identify evaluation criteria that prioritize enhancing the working environment which is known to impact overall organizational performance over traditional results-driven metrics to measure individual staff performance. Key theoretical underpinnings include discussions on validity, highlighting that measuring validity against the underlying goal of the performance evaluation (i.e., increased organizational performance) has been largely ignored in …

Motivating Through Assessment: Exploring Best Practices In Continuation High Schools, Stephanie Milton

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative exploratory case study examined how continuation high school teachers perceive and implement assessment practices that foster student motivation and accurately measure learning. Grounded in Assessment for Learning (AFL) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT), the study sought to identify assessment strategies that promote autonomy, competence, and relatedness among students who are at risk of academic disengagement. Seven teachers from a Continuation High School in the Coachella Valley participated in semi-structured interviews to explore their experiences, beliefs, and classroom practices regarding assessment and motivation. Data were analyzed thematically using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) method, with triangulation across interviews and literature to …

Writing The Script: Shaping Korean National Identity, Media Imperialism And The Revolution Of K-Dramas, Isai J. Martinez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of South Korean television dramas (K-dramas) as cultural artifacts that the Korean creators have created and become agents, which in turn has constructed and projected globally the modern South Korean national identity. Positioned at the crossroads of cultural imperialism, nationalism, resistance and appropriation, K-dramas have become extremely critical to reshaping South Korea’s place in the global media landscape. Through the lens of the Hallyu (The Korean Wave), this study analyzes how K-drama’s navigate an ambiguous cultural space which simultaneously resists Western media dominance while appropriating global forms including platform-based distribution, tailoring original content to …

From 4-H To Higher Education: College Enrollment Among Indiana 4-H Alumni By Demographics, Favour C. Ojike, Casey Mull

Journal of Youth Development

Evaluating the long-term impact of college readiness programs on diverse youth presents unique challenges, particularly as youth navigate the complex and often transient path of postsecondary education. Instrumentation limitations and resource constraints can further blur the positive contributions of such programs. In an inaugural study, Indiana 4-H leveraged the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) to assess the postsecondary educational journeys of its alumni across diverse demographic groups. Data from the NSC were analyzed using descriptive frequency test, chi-square tests, and correlation analysis. Key findings reveal that Indiana 4-H alumni enroll in postsecondary institutions at significantly higher rates than the state average, …